creamy onions

This family loves onions.  We put onion in and on about 95% of everything that we put on the table.  SOME of us (I won't name any names...) even eat them by themselves.  Raw.  I have to be might desperate for an onion to do that...

Several years ago...ok, a really long time ago I found a recipe for this nice onion side dish.  It's been so long that I haven't a clue where it came from, but everyone really likes it so I thought I'd share the yumminess. :)

Steam 2 lbs of peeled and quartered onions until tender.  About 25-35 minutes.

Sauce:

   1/4 cup butter

   1/3 cup flour

      -Whisk over moderate heat; cook and stir while it bubbles.  About 1 minute.

       Remove from heat and add:

   1 cup chicken broth

   1 cup milk

   1/4 tsp. paprika

   1/8 tsp. salt

   1/8 tsp. pepper

       -Whisk until smooth then return to heat.  Stir constantly until thick.

         Blend in:

   3 Tbsp. Parmesan cheese
   1/4 cup fresh minced parsley

Combine in casserole dish.  Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes.

a new favorite

We've been trying out a lot of new recipes around here lately.  It's always nice to revamp the weekly menu with some new regulars.

Today's recipe was roasted vegetables.  Oh my, it was good!!!  I think that it's going to be appearing on our table quite often from now on!

Roasted Vegetables

1 small butternut squash, cubed
2 red bell peppers, seeded and diced
1 sweet potato, peeled and cubed
3 Yukon Gold potatoes, cubed (any potatoes)
1 red onion, quartered
1 TB chopped fresh thyme
2 TB chopped fresh rosemary
1/4 cup olive oil
salt and pepper  to taste

Directions

1.  Preheat oven to 475 degrees.
2.  In a large bowl or pot, combine the squash, red bell peppers, sweet potato, and Yukon Gold potatoes.  Separate the red   onion quarters into pieces, and add them to the mixture.
3.  In a small bowl stir together thyme, rosemary, olive oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper.  Toss with vegetables until they are coated.  Spread evenly on a large roasting pan.
4.  Roast for 35-40 minutes stirring every 10 minutes until vegetables are cooked through and browned.

Trust me, this stuff is delicious!  It's meant to be a side dish, but personally, I could make a meal out of it by itself. 

One thing that surprised us was how sweet it was.  Even with the butternut squash (which tastes a lot like a melon), sweet potatoes, sweet red peppers, sweet red onions, we were not expecting it to be quite as sweet as it turned.  It's a good kind of sweet though.  Not too much but just enough to be amazing! We all agreed that it would go great with steaks.

If you're looking for something new as a side dish, this is definitely a must try!

have I ever mentioned...

...that my Mama is the best cook in the world? 

It's true.

Growing up, one of my favorite things that she made was pizza.  Not the out-of-the-box stuff.  I'm talking about real, homemade pizza.  I'd mentioned a few weeks ago that we hadn't had it a while and guess what?  She made some today!

Warning: the following is a recipe for an extremely thin and crunchy crust!  This makes two pizzas.

Mama's Pizza Crust

2 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour

(If you can grind your own, that's even better!)

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon dry yeast

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup warm water (120-130 degrees)

2 tablespoons of oil

Sift 2 cups of flour with other dry ingredients together with a mixer wand.  Add water and oil - mix well.  Add remaining flour as needed to make a soft dough.  Knead a few minutes.  Let rest for 5 minutes.  Roll  out on a floured surface and then place on an oiled pizza pan.

Bake in a 500 degree oven for 5-10 minutes (until lightly brown).

We've been putting flax seed in everything lately.  It's a great source of fiber and it also reduces the risk of heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes.  Just grind it up (we use a coffee grinder) and put it in with the other ingredients.  With breads, like this recipe, just take out a portion of the whole wheat flour and replace it with the flax seed flour.

After you're finished baking the crust, it's time for the toppings!  We use our special spaghetti sauce.  This time we added just a little bit of Rotel to the sauce for a hint of spiciness.  It was really good!

And of course, what pizza would be complete without a ridiculous amount of cheese?

Mozzarella, Cheddar, and a bit of leftover Pepper Jack.

Mmmm!  We love our cheese!

Pop it back in the oven until all of the cheese melts and then you have...



...melty, cheesy, yumminess!

Now, at our house, we can't have pizza without a salad.  That would be serving chili without small peanut butter sandwiches on the side (or is that something that only we do? ;).

I recently found this amazing salad dressing.  The original was ok, but after a little tweaking, we managed to make it even better!

 Salad Dressing

1 cup of olive oil
1/4 cup of lemon juice
1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar
1 tsp of parsley
2 tsp of oregano
1 tsp of dill weed
3 tsp of basil
1 tsp of dry mustard
1/2 tsp garlic powder

This is my new favorite!  It goes wonderful on a salad with sunflower seeds.  The seeds really bring out the nutty flavor in the olive oil.


Enjoy!

tuna burgers

Our family has always loved tuna.  It's been a staple around here for as long as I can remember.  No matter how you prepare it, it's a very inexpensive meal.  One recipe that we particularly enjoy are tuna burgers.

Mix together:  
 2 cans of tuna (drained)
 1 piece of bread broken into pieces
 1 egg
 2 Tbsp. chopped dill pickles
              (I like more though!)
 1 1/2 Tbsp. mustard

Add cornmeal to make patties hold together.  If the mixture is too wet, the patties will fall apart in the pan.

Heat oil in a skillet and lightly sprinkle with cornmeal.  Brown patties on both sides.  I like for mine to be crusty on the outside.  I've found that it's easier to achieve this if you cook them in a cast iron skillet.

When they're finished cooking, just prepare them like you would a normal hamburger and enjoy!

special spaghetti sauce...

When I was little, my mom canned a huge batch of spaghetti sauce.  The recipe she used called for cheese which, of course, burned.  The result was a lovely homemade sauce with a slightly scorched taste.  It took a little while to get used to, but we actually got to liking it.  Did I mention that she made a HUGE batch?  I think it lasted a little over two years.  When we finally ran out we went out and bought a case of sauce at the store.  Would you believe that after two years of scorched sauce, we could hardly eat the "normal" stuff!

Now, Mama cans all of the garden tomatoes to use for soups, so we have to buy sauce.  Over the years, I think we've tried just about every brand of spaghetti sauce on the market, but we just couldn't find anything that we liked the taste of.  Finally, we decided to make our own again.  Instead of homegrown tomatoes, we buy plain tomato sauce and add our own ingredients to it.

After trying several different brands of tomato sauce, we finally settled on 8 ounce cans of Happy Harvest from Aldi.  Many of the other brands we tried were greasy. 

We add four different kinds of herbs as well as garlic to the sauce. 

Parsley
Oregano
Basil
Italian Seasoning

Just add to taste.  We like a very flavorful sauce so we add quite a bit of each.  Our family is also very partial to basil, so we add a bit more of it than the other herbs.

Add minced garlic cloves.
This is also to taste.  We LOVE garlic, so we usually use one clove for each 8 ounce can of sauce.

Mix well, heat thoroughly and there you have it!  A wonderful spaghetti sauce perfect for any dish.  It also gives a wonderful Italian fragrance to the kitchen!

Enjoy!